Baarle-Hertog

Earlier this month, Rob noticed several blogs mentioning the town of Baarle-Hertog, near the Belgian-Dutch border.  The town is noticeable because it's both Dutch and Belgian, but in a very odd way.  Instead of one border running through the town, like along a main road or a river, the town consists of 24 plots of land, with some Belgian enclaves inside larger Dutch plots and some Dutch enclaves inside larger Belgian plots. 

So, as you walk through the town, you are constantly crossing between the two countries. Anyway, Rob looked it up and since it's only 15 minutes from Bier Paradijs, he dragged everyone there to check it out.  He's such a nerd.

If you didn't know about the town's unique property, you probably wouldn't notice just by driving through. On foot though, you discover several signs, some more obvious than others. We parked the car and wandered into the town center expecting a clear sign of the two countries' territories- something like little Belgian kids throwing rocks at their Dutch neighbors or something: "Dutchie, Go Home!" Of course, there's nothing so dramatic as that, and we wandered for a couple blocks, a little disappointed, until Paul pointed out that we had just crossed the border:

(As we were taking pictures, the townspeople in the nearby restaurants were getting a kick out of us.  Don't think they get too many tourists in Baarle-Hertog.)  The line of crosses becomes a line of raised silver studs as it enters the road, and as you walk through town you spot it frequently.  The line above splits two buildings, but there are several buildings and houses in town that are split by the border.  As the town changes between the Netherlands and Belgium, so do the street signs and the building numbers.  So, if the border intersects a street, the numbering system totally changes.  It's gotta be tough on a postal worker.  Somewhat helping simplify things, the house numbers feature the flag of whichever country they are in:

Anyway, it was a neat little detour and we were able to enjoy some Belgian food.  At least we think it was Belgian- we were definitely on the Belgian side, but we're pretty sure the waitstaff was Dutch...